Edwin Bryant

As a result of the discovery of similarities between Sanskrit and the classical languages of Europe, scholars hypothesized the existence of an early “proto-Indo-European” people who spoke the ...
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As a result of the discovery of similarities between Sanskrit and the classical languages of Europe, scholars hypothesized the existence of an early “proto-Indo-European” people who spoke the language from which the other Indo-European speakers evolved. The solution to this Indo-European homeland problem has been one of the most consuming intellectual projects of the last two centuries. At first it was assumed that India was the original home of all the Indo-Europeans. Soon, however, Western scholars were contending that the Vedic culture of ancient India must have been the by-product of an invasion or migration of “Indo-Aryans” from outside the subcontinent. Over the years, Indian scholars have raised many arguments against this European reconstruction of their nation’s history, yet Western scholars have generally been unaware or dismissive of these voices from India itself. Edwin Bryant offers a comprehensive examination of this ongoing debate, presenting all of the relevant philological, archaeological, linguistic, and historiographical data, and showing how they have been interpreted both to support the theory of Aryan migrations and to contest it. Bringing to the fore those hitherto marginalized voices that argue against the external origin of the Indo-Aryans, he shows how Indian scholars have questioned the very logic, assumptions, and methods upon which the theory is based and have used the same data to arrive at very different conclusions. By exposing the whole endeavor to criticism from scholars who do not share the same intellectual history as their European peers, Bryant’s work newly complicates the Indo-European homeland quest. At the same time it recognizes the extent to which both sides of the debate have been driven by political, racial, religious, and nationalistic agendas.Less

The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate

Edwin Bryant

Published in print: 2001-09-20

As a result of the discovery of similarities between Sanskrit and the classical languages of Europe, scholars hypothesized the existence of an early “proto-Indo-European” people who spoke the language from which the other Indo-European speakers evolved. The solution to this Indo-European homeland problem has been one of the most consuming intellectual projects of the last two centuries. At first it was assumed that India was the original home of all the Indo-Europeans. Soon, however, Western scholars were contending that the Vedic culture of ancient India must have been the by-product of an invasion or migration of “Indo-Aryans” from outside the subcontinent. Over the years, Indian scholars have raised many arguments against this European reconstruction of their nation’s history, yet Western scholars have generally been unaware or dismissive of these voices from India itself. Edwin Bryant offers a comprehensive examination of this ongoing debate, presenting all of the relevant philological, archaeological, linguistic, and historiographical data, and showing how they have been interpreted both to support the theory of Aryan migrations and to contest it. Bringing to the fore those hitherto marginalized voices that argue against the external origin of the Indo-Aryans, he shows how Indian scholars have questioned the very logic, assumptions, and methods upon which the theory is based and have used the same data to arrive at very different conclusions. By exposing the whole endeavor to criticism from scholars who do not share the same intellectual history as their European peers, Bryant’s work newly complicates the Indo-European homeland quest. At the same time it recognizes the extent to which both sides of the debate have been driven by political, racial, religious, and nationalistic agendas.

The dethronement is traced of Sanskrit from its initial position as the original proto-language of all the Indo-Europeans in the opinion of the early linguists to its ongoing diminishing status as a ...
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The dethronement is traced of Sanskrit from its initial position as the original proto-language of all the Indo-Europeans in the opinion of the early linguists to its ongoing diminishing status as a secondary language containing a number of linguistic features that are considered to be more recent than those of other Indo-European cognate languages. The chapter has two main sections. The first looks at the law of the palatals (the primary linguistic formula arrived at by the comparative method that shattered Sanskrit’s pre-eminent status) and the discovery of the laryngeals in Hittite (based on an examination of Hittite documents in Anatolia). The second discusses linguistic objections from India (mainly from Satya Swarup Misra).Less

Indo‐European Comparative Linguistics : The Dethronement of Sanskrit

Edwin Bryant

Published in print: 2001-09-20

The dethronement is traced of Sanskrit from its initial position as the original proto-language of all the Indo-Europeans in the opinion of the early linguists to its ongoing diminishing status as a secondary language containing a number of linguistic features that are considered to be more recent than those of other Indo-European cognate languages. The chapter has two main sections. The first looks at the law of the palatals (the primary linguistic formula arrived at by the comparative method that shattered Sanskrit’s pre-eminent status) and the discovery of the laryngeals in Hittite (based on an examination of Hittite documents in Anatolia). The second discusses linguistic objections from India (mainly from Satya Swarup Misra).

This chapter examines the poetic traditions of Indo-Europeans. Topics covered include concepts of poetry, poetry as recall, poesy as construction, poesy as weaving, poesy as carpentry, the ship of ...
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This chapter examines the poetic traditions of Indo-Europeans. Topics covered include concepts of poetry, poetry as recall, poesy as construction, poesy as weaving, poesy as carpentry, the ship of song, the chariot of song, Graeco-Aryan metre, alliteration, metrical terminology, poetic prose, verse in a prose setting, hymns and praise, narrative poetry, personation, and codifications.Less

Poet and Poesy

M. L. West

Published in print: 2007-05-01

This chapter examines the poetic traditions of Indo-Europeans. Topics covered include concepts of poetry, poetry as recall, poesy as construction, poesy as weaving, poesy as carpentry, the ship of song, the chariot of song, Graeco-Aryan metre, alliteration, metrical terminology, poetic prose, verse in a prose setting, hymns and praise, narrative poetry, personation, and codifications.

To the 19th-century scholar, Anatolia was little more than a mysterious blank in the Near East during the Bronze Age at a time when the great ancient civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt ...
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To the 19th-century scholar, Anatolia was little more than a mysterious blank in the Near East during the Bronze Age at a time when the great ancient civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt were in their prime. By the middle of the third millennium (the Early Bronze II phase), there were wealthy ruling houses and important centres of civilization in various parts of Anatolia. Relatively few of the established Early Bronze II communities survived into the final phase of the Early Bronze Age, and some scholars associate the apparent upheavals of this period with the arrival or incursions of Indo-Europeans into Anatolia. From at least as early as the time of the Akkadian empire of Sargon, the region in which the central Anatolian kingdoms lay was known as the Land of Hatti. Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region in the third millennium was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians. The kingdom of the Hittites was founded in the early or middle years of the 17th century.Less

The Origins of the Hittites

TREVOR BRYCE

Published in print: 2005-10-27

To the 19th-century scholar, Anatolia was little more than a mysterious blank in the Near East during the Bronze Age at a time when the great ancient civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt were in their prime. By the middle of the third millennium (the Early Bronze II phase), there were wealthy ruling houses and important centres of civilization in various parts of Anatolia. Relatively few of the established Early Bronze II communities survived into the final phase of the Early Bronze Age, and some scholars associate the apparent upheavals of this period with the arrival or incursions of Indo-Europeans into Anatolia. From at least as early as the time of the Akkadian empire of Sargon, the region in which the central Anatolian kingdoms lay was known as the Land of Hatti. Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region in the third millennium was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians. The kingdom of the Hittites was founded in the early or middle years of the 17th century.